6 Factors that Stop B2B Leads from Becoming Sales

Your B2B leads aren’t turning into sales. Why not? They should be. Maybe you’re killing your sale before it even gets off the ground. Here’s how to save it.

They’re Not Sales Ready, You’re Not Organized

If you’re not selling to people who are ready yet, you’ll never make the sale. Part of the problem might be that you’re not organized and you’re not presenting relevant information to the prospect so they can’t make a decision.

This is a problem a lot of sales organizations don’t like to admit. But, more and more companies are using apps, like this mortgage software, to manage sales leads and stay organized. Get on this bandwagon.

You’re Not Generating Qualified Leads

Maybe you’re just not generating qualified leads. A lot of smaller organizations are still of the opinion that anything that fogs a mirror is a lead. This is wrong – so terribly, terribly wrong. You have to wonder what upper management is thinking.

People who have problems that you can solve, and people who are most interested in solving those problems in the near future, are your ideal prospects. The farther away you get from that ideal, the worse the lead is.

Your Leads Are In The Beginning Of The Cycle – You’re Selling Too Early

If your leads are at the beginning of the sales cycle, they’re not going to be very interested in buying from you… right now. But, maybe they’ll be interested later. If you’re trying to sell too early, forget about it.

You might scare your leads away or you may simply not connect with them. A lead generally needs multiple exposures before they will commit to anything. Sometimes, it takes seven “touches,” sometimes more.

You’re Scaring Your Leads

If you’re selling too early, stop. You’re probably scaring your lead. Ditto if you’re browbeating them. Consumers are a lot smarter these days, thanks to the Internet. They can search for just about anything, they’re more weary of companies trying to push stuff on them, and they can take their time and comparison shop.

You Don’t Have Enough Resources To Attract High-Quality Leads

If you don’t have enough resources to get qualified leads, this is always going to result in low sales conversions. So, shore up your finances before you try tweaking your sales funnel. You need to at least be able to target the right demographic and market for your goods or services.

You’re Not Managing Leads Properly

Delay is the death of a sale – you’ve heard that before, right? In some respects it’s true. If you let a lead “go cold,” you’ve lost them. You have to keep people interested in what you have to offer or else they’ll go somewhere else to solve their problems.

In other words, you need to have a protocol or system for managing leads and moving them through the sales cycle. This goes beyond just having a nifty app that tracks leads. You have to have something interesting and relevant to say to them.

Autoresponders are great for this sort of thing, as long as you can keep the conversation “light” and interesting. If you go 3 months without contacting a lead, don’t expect them to be responsive to your offering.

Michael Bird is a B2B marketing consultant. He enjoys sharing his insights on the web. You can read his articles mainly on B2B, marketing and business sites.